“The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past, we call genetics. The information revealed thousands of years ago, we call religion. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago, we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago, we call family, and the information offered years, months, days, or hours ago, we call education and advice.”
– David Brooks, The Social Animal
The processing of information largely occurs to fulfill the natural need for social connections. To defeat the sense of isolation, humans are born with the tendency to bond and establish relationships through public communication. Like a computer sitting inside the system of network, single mind expects response and reflection from others in order to make sense and have meanings. The existence of such "networked interpersonal communication", as professor Greg Downey points out, serves to "exert organizational control at a distance" (Downey, 2011). As the result, information flows inside full-duplex channels to wire individuals into the functional infrastructure of social network. By doing so, people are able to see their reflections on others and adjust accordingly to maintain their social status. Not only does information promote social networking, but it also helps collective intelligence and historic experiences withstand critical times and long duration. As Brooks argues, “smarter animals such as apes are actually pretty good at coming up with innovative solutions to common problems. What they are not good at is passing down their discoveries to future generations” (Brooks, 2011). On the contrary, humans have evolved the specialized skill of learning from outside information and recording it for future reference. The unique characteristic of exchanging and preserving information makes it possible for humans to always stand on the shoulders of giants and make subsequent progress. From the invention of paper to the introduction of cloud computing, our culture and technologies can be easily mapped to the development of more efficient and reliable information processing and storage.
No comments:
Post a Comment